Sunday, February 26, 2006

Carnival

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Prepping for Mardi Gras

As I'm sitting here girding my psyche for what should be one of the more interesting Mardi Gras' in New Orleans' history, I find myself slightly disappointed that I haven't heard any rumblings from the Hell's Angels.

We could really use them this year... to explain:

With roots dating back into the early 1700's, but officially acknowledged as starting in New Orleans in 1857, Mardi Gras since that year has only been cancelled five times - four during World War II and once for a police strike in 1979 - and trust me, we're not letting the near total destruction of this city stop us this year.

But one of the more tremulous Mardi Gras' was back in the 1960's when the Hell's Angels announced they were going to decend on the city en masse on Fat Tuesday. The city damn near puked in fear. The bikers actually never made it as far as Kansas City or something like that before they passed out.

This year I say, invite those damn bikers on down... If we give em enough fortified wine, easy access to sledgehammers and lure them towards Lakeview and the Lower 9 with giant cauldrons of patchulli and skunk scent - they will naturally run amok. But heck, half those houses need to come down anyway. Sounds like a win-win. We get some demolition in for free and they get to think they're bringing a city to it's knees.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Offshore Oil Leases Revisited

Even though South Louisiana received some potentially good news after George Bush tried to deflect Katrina criticism off of him by stating that he would support another +$4B in Community Block Grants to help the neighborhoods upon neighborhoods of flood-debris owners, it is important that Louisiana still carry a big stick - our only stick in making sure this happens.

As such, a fellow partner in crime has posted a legal brief on whether or not any Governor of the state of Louisiana can actively stop the Federal Government from mining minerals off this state's coastline.

Turns out - the answer is yes.

Check it out here on a new New Orleans group blog - theBATTURE.com - be forewarned though, it is a legal brief.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Malfeasance, Corruption & Idiocy

You have really got to be kidding me.

I woke this morning completely flabbergasted as the layers apon layers of gross negligence, stupidity, mismanagement and downright incompetence of the Government of the strongest nation in the world has really finally built up and slapped me in the face.

It wasn't the 10,000+ trailers sinking in Arkansas mud at a cost of almost 900 million that may have to be simply destroyed - that's almost a third of the money allocated for rebuilding our levees - that did it.

It is the entire experience of the Gulf Coast that has done it. I can not name one positive thing to come out of this entire situation at any level of Government that has done it. I demand accountability and Federal Indictements.

I mean seriously, the gall of this so-called Government to browbeat Louisiana over incompetence. You have got to be kidding me. The godamned Vice President can't even aim a goddamned shotgun and we expect these people lead?

I want Chertoff's head. I want Michael Brown's head. I want the little peon beauracrat's head, who signed off on 900 million dollars worth of trailers to be used in an OBVIOUS floodplain, but according to FEMA's own rules can't be put in a floodplain. I want Hastert's head for trying to abandon a part of this nation. I want Blanco's head. I want every representative's head in Baton Rouge who are opposing levee board reform's head.

I want to armor the levees systems of this region with the skulls of these... twits.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

I Broke the Float

What a pleasant hangover and trust me, I earned it big time last night in Krewe du Vieux.

Our entire Krewe was a spectacle of frenzied debauchery, loathsome baseness and well deserved laughs - and there's no way in heck that this city didn't need us and all the parade goers to come out and revel. We are not a city flatlining.

As I drained another cocktail nearing the turn onto Frenchman Street, I got this and rediscovered a few truths about Mardi Gras and New Orleans that really seem so obvious, yet for some reason I had forgotten. That maybe a lot of New Orleanians had forgotten.

Mardi Gras and New Orleans are not spectator sports.The people standing along the parade route are not there to mutely witness a Rose Parade or a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade oohing and awing amongst themselves. Instead, they are easily 80-90% of what constitutes a New Orleans parade, and I think this is actually one of the purest examples of how New Orleans is so different and apart from the rest of America.

When you really look at a New Orleans parade, whether it's Mardi Gras, Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, whenever - there is no difference between the Krewe marching (or stumbling) down the street and the thousands of people lining the route. They are one and the same. They interact. They mingle juices. They combust and completely feed off of each other. Together they are the Krewe.

Other than Canal Street, we don't line our routes with barricades - how else would you walk over and accept a kiss from some hot twenty-something? How else would you grab your bottle of whiskey from the back of the float, take a pull and then offer it to some random woman standing next to her husband who doesn't even hesitate to take a swig? How else would you make eye contact with a thousand other people and in that brief moment where you are both smiling or laughing or cackling know exactly that you're both connected, that you're actually not feeding off of each other - but more like lifting or raising each other.

A New Orleans parade is not about being viewed or forcing pretty little things down the eyes of people standing controlled by barricades and cops - it is in fact, a representation of life itself. There is comingling.

It is a caricature of life that somehow becomes life. It is a definition and a moving target. To try and define the energy and will of New Orleanians to celebrate, especially in this time of times would be like trying to quantify sub-atomic particles. You can either know it's speed or trajectory but not both at the same time.

Are the people there because there's a parade or is the parade there because there's people.

Now not only do my kidneys hurt, but I have a headache. Nevertheless, I give you one of my favorite Mardi Gras stories...

It was Bacchus Sunday several years ago and I was at a house party on St. Charles Ave. that had Re-Birth Brass Band playing on the front porch to the many thousands of people walking by. Hours later as the parade was rolling, a few of us were standing on the upper balconey drinking, eating Popeye's, catching longbeads and cranking up the stereo really loud in between the marching bands. Bacchus had a breakdown somewhere down the street and the Krewe was stalled for about 30 minutes, with a high school band from Iowa and a NOPD cruiser parked in front of the house. The band had stopped playing so we cranked up the music. From the balconey I watched as the crowd merged with the band of lilly white kids from the midwest all dancing and carrying on. Some lithe girl got on the hood of the police cruiser and basically did some sort of suggestive snake charming dance. To my mild amazement a cop walked into the yard, shined his flashlight at us and motioned for us to crank it up.

Oh yeah, I really did break the float last night. I was on the oversized tricycle pulling the float and kept spinning the pedals backwards. It actually took three times for the chain to fall off for me to discover that it was I who was causing some of the small delays... One real mule did breakdown though.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Friday, February 10, 2006

Krewe du Vieux Parades Tomorrow

C'est Levee

My anticipation is palpable. I am ready to walk amongst our fellow New Orleanians and the thousands of FEMA beauracrats, who are still in town screwing up our fair city - loudly denouncing the Feds, FEMA and the Corpse of Engineers.

Keep your ears peeled for our King, Walter "Mr. Bill" Williams (that's the dude (and fellow New Orleanian) who came up with the Mr. Bill claymation of Saturday Night Live) to give a rousing speech on the exact site of President Bush's speech after Katrina where he lied to all of our faces.

The rumours are also starting to build that the band headliners at the Krewe du Vieux Do (Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, along with Juice, and The Claim Jumpers with Mike Hood and Michael Sklar along with special guest Coco Robicheaux) will be joined by the lead singer of some band called the Rolling Stones.

Here's the projected path of KdV this year and parents remember that KdV is not for children...And if you go, don't expect to catch many throws as we're still waiting on those to arrive from FEMA - but do expect some audio posts from me throughout so you can actually follow it live if you're up in the frozen tundra of Alaska or Chicago. I will endeavor to get Mr. Bill's speech up on an audio post. Sunday night I most likely will (if I'm still not too hungover (very likely)) have some pictures up.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

3 Weeks til Mardi Gras in the Wasteland

• My friends over at Renew NOLA have scored a huge windfall by having this year's REX Krewe throw out the Renew NOLA bracelets. Interesting Times-Pic article here about REX.

• In three days (Saturday 7:00pm) I'll be marching through the French Quarter with Krewe du Vieux, the only official Krewe which is allowed to parade through the Quarter. Trust me, the Feds ears and eyes are going to burn. Stay tuned Sunday evening for a full report with plenty of photos.

Now lets slip back to reality for just a bit here...

• This article from the AP explains how many people in New Orleans are being forced to break the law in order to get electricity, by illegally breaking into and then doctoring up their electrical meters...

DAMN, that makes me so jealous. At least they have a meter to break and then turn on the electricity illegally! Gosh it sure sucks to have a bankrupt utility company that will not be aided by FEMA. Gosh it sure sucks that the Federal Government destroyed my city, and is trying its best in the aftermath to squash any glimmers of hope that we may have in rebuilding.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

"Time to play hardball"

Gov. Blanco has finally, as all of her constituents down here in southern Louisiana already know, decided that in order to be heard by President Bush she must begin to play hardball.

We are demanding that Louisiana be given its fair share of offshore royalties, monies that Texas and Florida already receive, in order to protect and rebuild our coasts which have been destroyed by this same offshore oil and gas production.

She has threatened to halt all future offshore oil and gas production off our coasts. And America you already had a taste of what that means with the fuel spikes after Katrina and Rita.

We are destroyed and devastated down here. Sure Bush has approved more than $85B to go towards this damage, but everyone must be aware that nearly 50% of this money is going to Republican Mississippi which had 1/5 of Louisiana's damage and the rest is spent by the bungling FEMA.

NOTHING IS HAPPENING DOWN HERE! THERE IS NO PROGRESS! The feds move quicker in goddamn Iraq.

Bush has been demanding a rebuilding plan from our state, we give him one in the form of the Baker Bill which he shoots down and then ridicules us for not having a plan.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Into the Void

I discovered where the contractors hid the keys to my FEMA trailer, so last night I helped to repopulate Lakeview. Plus one.

Describing my first night out there I could easily use some stupid words like ghostly, bleak and dead, but it wouldn't - I mean really wouldn't do it justice.

Sitting there on the porch of my house sipping on a Abita Restoration, staring out upon the stone cold blackness of my once vibrant neighborhood, and knowing that I'm the only human within at least a five block radius - it's almost painfull to describe.

The only sounds come from the crack of wooden doors broken in by rescue crews slamming open and shut in the wind. It smells of mud and chainsawed pine. It feels of low voltage and must, the only items clean are the stars that five months ago you couldn't see in the sky. There are no cats prowling, no dogs barking. Random trash flies by in the wind. No one drives by, you don't smell what the neighbors are cooking, and someone's drape hangs outside a window. Three doors down in the lower quadrant of the X, there is a count of 2.

A count of 2.

Two people. I never met them, an older couple. Their dogs used to bark at me - I'm sure they're dead too.

So what do you do? I did what we're all doing. I drank another beer, put WWOZ on the radio and allowed myself to think that it's getting better. That we're getting nearer to home... to our old home.

I think we should go ahead and burn whichever of Lagasse's cookbooks survived the Army Corps of Engineers flood outside of Emerils' in the Warehouse District... All those in favor - never eat at his restaurants again.

I guess we're going to have to start playing hardball down here, and our Governor rightly so, must look to protect her citizens by any means possible. Yesterday she announced that the State of Louisiana will NOT sign off on any more offshore oil and gas production until Louisiana can get a rightful percentage of the royalties in order to defend us from marauding hurricanes.

You go Governor!

Make the rest of the country feel the pain at the pump and then maybe that'll make Bush's asshole pucker and cast his Texas eyes down onto the desparate plight of AMERICANS in AMERICA!

On an uplifting, but sad note we've discovered that one of the biggest proponents and enabelers of New Orleans' recovery is a FOREIGN company, not the US Government and not an American company. Dutch Shell oil yesterday committed to returning their offshore division to New Orleans AND besides donating a ton of money to the NOPD, they have agreed to become the first ever sponsor of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival - arguably the second biggest tourist draw after Mardi Gras.

Disgusting that most American corporations, like Capital 1 (Hibernia) and the NFL, have either fled or have had to be dragged screaming back to New Orleans.